It’s no secret I’m a paper and pen lover. Unfortunately, emails can’t be sent in the form of a hand written letter anymore (god damn I miss my penpal!) – so after feeling COMPLETELY overwhelmed by my inbox, I decided to take a stand.
Yiota from Ola Digital introduced me to the Inox Zero Theory. It’s an approach to email management, aimed at keeping the inbox empty — or almost empty — at all times. I know there’ll be some of you who think you’re too far down the rabbit hole of emails, but never fear. I started with over 700 emails in my inbox and thought, “how the fuck am I supposed to ‘delete, delegate, respond, defer and do’ for every single one of these?!”
I made the executive decision (cause I can…#boss) that only the emails on the first two pages were worth looking at; if I hadn’t actioned or replied to the ones on every page after that, they were too far gone.
So I placed every email from page 3 onwards into a folder called “Previous to September” so I could still access them if needed to (don’t, for the love of god delete them) and spent last night actioning, replying to, deleting and filing the rest. I would also recommend spending a good chunk of time unsubscribing from all of those emails you accidentally signed up for (hey Dominos) or no longer want to receive.
And let me tell you, I feel like a brand new woman! I’m currently sitting on 9 emails in my inbox…NINE!!! It’s amazing what the feeling of being organised can do for your soul. It makes knowing what I have to do today a lot clearer and I feel way more aware of what’s important, without the dark cloud of a full inbox hanging over my head.
If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, like you can’t get on top of things and you’ll never catch up, give the Inbox Zero Theory a go. Don’t stress about those unanswered emails from page 3 onwards, if it’s important enough, they’ll follow up.
Em x